As much as I feel in my groove when I’m preaching, I’ve discovered a serious difficulty that comes with preaching every week: I always feel like I’m preaching a first draft!

A sermon is something that really has to be developed, to be worked over, and it’s hard to do week after week. When I finish a sermon manuscript, that’s just the beginning. The sermon that is actually preached often has only a loose resemblance to the first manuscript.

But I’m finding that one week does not allow time for this process to happen from start to finish.

A possible solution, I think, might be increased intentionality in the preaching schedule. There needs to be a rhythm. A couple months of preaching should be followed by a couple weeks off, not just to get refreshed and recharged, but to get ahead. That’s the key, I think: to get ahead and stay ahead by at least three weeks if not more.

There have been breaks in the preaching schedule at CrossWay, but some of them have been last-minute. And with some of the others, I didn’t use them to get ahead. I’ll work on being more intentional that way, using down time and breaks in preaching to get a jump on upcoming messages.